tiation Ceremony of Girls," _Zeitschrift fuer
Ethnologie_, 1898, Heft 6). At the first sign of menstruation the
girl is taken by her mother out of the village to a grass hut
prepared for her where only the women are allowed to visit her.
At the end of menstruation she is taken to a secluded spot and
the women dance round her, no men being present. It was only with
much difficulty that Angus was enabled to witness the ceremony.
The girl is then informed in regard to the hygiene of
menstruation. "Many songs about the relations between men and
women are sung, and the girl is instructed as to all her duties
when she becomes a wife.... The girl is taught to be faithful to
her husband, and to try and bear children. The whole matter is
looked upon as a matter of course, and not as a thing to be
ashamed of or to hide, and being thus openly treated of and no
secrecy made about it, you find in this tribe that the women are
very virtuous, because the subject of married life has no glamour
for them. When a woman is pregnant she is again danced; this time
all the dancers are naked, and she is taught how to behave and
what to do when the time of her delivery arrives."

Among the Yuman Indians of California, as described by Horatio
Rust ("A Puberty Ceremony of the Mission Indians," _American
Anthropologist_, Jan. to March, 1906, p. 28) the girls are at
puberty prepared for marriage by a ceremony. They are wrapped in
blankets and placed in a warm pit, where they lie looking very
happy as they peer out through their covers. For four days and
nights they lie here (occasionally going away for food), while
the old women of the tribe dance and sing round the pit
constantly. At times the old women throw silver coins among the
crowd to teach the girls to be generous. They also give away
cloth and wheat, to teach them to be kind to the old and needy;
and they sow wild seeds broadcast over the girls to cause them to
be prolific. Finally, all strangers are ordered away, garlands
are placed on the girls' heads, and they are led to a hillside
and shown the large and sacred stone, symbolical of the female
organs of generation and resembling them, which is said to
protect women. Then grain is thrown over all present, and the
ceremony is over.

The Thlinkeet Eskimo women were long noted for their fine